The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, September 28, announced that Justice Samuel Alito will not continue to participate in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a significant climate change dispute scheduled for argument on the first day of the 2026-27 term. The court gave no explanation for the recusal in its announcement. The case will now be decided by the remaining eight justices.

The same day, the Trump administration returned to the court's emergency docket, asking the justices to block an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that bars the Federal Bureau of Prisons from enforcing a new policy on healthcare and accommodations for transgender inmates. The new policy, a reversal of prior practice, would prohibit transgender inmates from obtaining gender-transition surgeries, hormone therapy, and what the government calls "social accommodations" — such as makeup, wigs, and padding.

The administration also pressed a second emergency fight. On Thursday, September 24, it asked the Supreme Court to intervene in Department of Homeland Security v. DVD, a battle over third-country removals — the removal of noncitizens to countries not identified in their removal orders. On Monday, lawyers for the affected immigrants urged the justices to leave in place a ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts that bars the government from conducting such removals. Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance told the justices that the lower-court decision "does not prevent third-country removals; rather, it simply requires" the Trump administration "to do so lawfully."

The dispute has drawn international attention. According to Reuters, more than a dozen UN human rights experts have written to the U.S. government urging a halt to third-country removals, saying they are "putting migrants at heightened risk of abuse, including torture and persecution." In their statement, the experts said: "The harms caused by this US Government scheme are no longer hypothetical," adding that "[a]t gravest risk are children, women, persons with disabilities, victims of trafficking, LGBT persons, human rights defenders, stateless persons and other people in extremely vulnerable situations."

Also on Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, acting for the court, refused an injunction request by a Brooklyn woman who says her son is being excluded from Stuyvesant High School by an admissions initiative that unfairly seeks to balance student demographics. The woman had asked the court to direct Stuyvesant to admit her son while her discrimination lawsuit, alleging the elite New York City school's policy discriminates against Asian Americans, continues.

In Oklahoma, U.S. District Judge David Russell last week cleared the way for a religious charter school overseen by the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to open, ruling that the state cannot "single out religious schools for exclusion solely because of their religious character." The ruling revives the constitutional question the Supreme Court failed to resolve last term, when it deadlocked 4-4 in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, the case of St. Isidore virtual Catholic school, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board noted that the issue "could use Supreme Court guidance."

In a related criminal matter, a New Jersey man, Louis Geri, was sentenced Monday to nearly six years in prison for taking homemade explosive devices to the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., which was preparing for the annual Red Mass celebrating the start of the Supreme Court's term. Police arrested Geri on October 5, 2025, and found more than 100 homemade explosives in his possession, along with paperwork expressing what police called "significant animosity" toward the Roman Catholic Church, Jewish people, and the Supreme Court.

For practitioners, the week's filings signal another heavy emergency docket ahead. Since early July, the justices have received more than 30 significant interim applications, including several high-profile requests from the Trump administration — prompting the court to request additional briefs and issue orders and opinions throughout a summer recess that once saw little such activity. The justices met Monday for their annual "long conference" to clear the accumulated petitions, with a grants list expected later this week. The 2026-27 term opens Monday, October 5, with two oral arguments, including the Suncor climate case that Alito will now sit out. Monday also marked 21 years since Chief Justice John Roberts was sworn in.